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Africa’s Rapid Industrialization Begins in Namibia by Groot Group

The first time of doing something, anything anywhere, is always the hardest; but once you do it a few times, either successfully well or not, it gets easier with time, every time.

As Chief Economist, and now CEO of Groot Group, as well as Project Director for most of our industrial projects, I’ve learned a lot by dealing with certain things, either socially or politically, in Namibia in terms of developing Groot, Otavi Steel, and Sitentu Power Plant; but with our recently unveiled Tses Glass Manufacturing Plant, this is now happening fastest and easiest than any other.

Our achieved success from doing the Sitentu Power Plant and then the Otavi Steel Mill has made it easier for doing all of our other projects; and in addition, many of the world’s largest and leading companies from around the world have lined up and continue to line for our projects.

It’s now easier for us to plan and execute any industrial project and within less than 48 hours, we have a complete team in place, ready to take on the project; companies from the USA, South Africa, Europe and Asia, such as a team from South Africa’s largest, The Dickson Group and Germany’s largest Horn Glass Industries, will arrive in Namibia in coming days. A team from the US and another team from Cognex in France will also arrive in Namibia in early August for Tses Glass. More companies based in Germany, Northern Ireland, Russia, Italy, Israel, India, etc., are scheduling to come to Namibia for our Tses Glass Manufacturing Plant.

This fast approach for the development of Tses Glass is making it ready for the construction to begin next year in May, nearly at the same time as Otavi Steel, which starts in April next year.

We understand that Europe is currently in dire financial crisis, so as the US economy is also in the stagnant mode, and the US and European companies are shifting their profit yearning to the market where they deem lucrative, and Namibia, because of our Group’s initiatives, is at the forefront for them. In return, Namibia as a country and the Namibian people will enormously and exponentially benefit from these industrial projects’ development.

Just by combining the Otavi Steel Mill and Tses Glass Plant’s indirect employment creation opportunities in Namibia, about 260,000 permanent indirect jobs, just from these two projects, will be created in Namibia alone. But how did we get this number? Otavi Steel’s direct employment is about 23,500 and for Tses Glass is about 27,900. By adding those numbers together and multiply them by a factor of 5 (based on the fact that each 1 direct employment created generates about 5 indirect job opportunities), then you get 257,000 indirect job opportunities created just from two industrial projects in Namibia. And that will help reduce Namibia’s current unemployment rate of about 54% to about 21% within just the first few years of commissioning these two industrial projects.

For Namibia to realize Vision 2030 on time, and this is a fact that a “big rock” must be thrust into the Namibian economy by no later than 2018. And this “big rock” must be so huge that it will create long-lasting ripple effects to exponentially boost Namibia’s aggregate economy in full fast growth speed, but without jolting an inflationary pressure. And these two industrial projects; Tses Glass and Otavi Steel, as complemented by Sitentu Power Plant are part of this “big rock”.

On a macroeconomic impact level, just nearly as it’s expected in Otavi, so as it will happen in Tses. Currently, Tses is a small village with a small sparsely population of about 2500. However, as Tses Glass will require more than 27,900 direct workers, more and more Namibians are expected to flock to Tses in search of better paying jobs. As a results, Tses will need no less than 20,000 new homes. Taking at least 4 persons per each household, that will boost the Tses population to more than 80,000 within 4 years. And for this reason, Tses needs to develop at least 5 new suburbs with each suburb to be composed of at least 5,000 new homes. As these new suburbs are developed, there will be a need for clinics, retail stores, gas services (right now there’s only one small gas service which operates at certain hours of each day), barber shops, hospitals, colleges, schools, etc., in order to serve the expected fast rising residents of Tses.

Currently, Namibia’s population is mostly centralized; mostly in a few major cities and towns such as Windhoek, Walvisbay, Oshakati, and Swakopmund. The municipalities of these towns can barely keep up with the providing of basic services such as water, electricity and sewage to their residents. More and more shanty towns in these cities and towns around Namibia are mushrooming up exponentially as more Namibians are moving from the rural to urban centers in search of work.

And, as these towns, Otavi, Tses, etc., boost the demand for employment opportunities caused by our industrial projects, then some people in other areas as stated above are poised to migrate to these areas of Tses and Otavi in search of work. Hence the fastest and efficient cause of a population decentralization in Namibia in a relative short period of time.

Well, this is obvious that, as more Namibians get better and find better paying jobs, more will no longer be housed in shack houses with cold and heat temperature. Certainly, the cold and heat weather are some of the major contributing factors to many of today’s chronicle diseases that affect most of the Namibian people. But, as more and more people have better paying jobs, they will have access to better housing with good water, electricity and sewage; hence the reduction in unnecessary sickness, which currently impose high-rise in healthcare costs to the government. Then Namibia is poised to experience a lower death rate, but more healthy births; hence a fast but healthy growing population.

For Swaziland, we are currently to develop a 1200 MW Coal Power Plant in Swaziland, and for Zimbabwe, we have an industrial project idea that, if developed, could turn around the Zimbabwean economy and make it a first world country (developed economy) within just 8 years. Hence the Zimbabwean government needs to contact us quickly for the implementation of this awesome project that will exponentially boost its economy and help create long-lasting socioeconomic benefits for the Zimbabwean people.

Zimbabwe, please contact me now at my email at simon@grootgroup.com. Let’s get to work and make the Zimbabwean economy more beautiful.